1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a "single-use" personal care product. The product can replace conventional single use products such as small bars of soap, mini-bottles of shampoo, etc. The product is storage stable while dry and contains only enough personal care cosmetic or cleansing agent for a single use. The product does not require bottling or complex wrapping, and is much more economical and environmentally friendly than the conventional single use products it replaces. The product can be conveniently carried in a purse or pocket, so that a consumer need never be without his favorite personal care products.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hotels provide their guests with small sized single use personal care products such as hand soap, shampoo, hair conditioners, body lotions, body wash products, shaving cream, etc.
One approach to providing single use products simply involves taking the same product found in large containers and simply providing a smaller volume in a smaller container. Examples of such products include shampoos, hair conditioners, skin lotions, etc., packaged in small plastic bottles. However, in practice, hotel shampoo bottles contain enough shampoo for at least two or three uses. This may be attributable to the proportionate expense of the plastic bottle, making it more reasonable commercially to simply include additional shampoo in each container, such that ultimately fewer containers need be dispensed. Used bottles must be disposed of, and usually contain some amount of unused or residual product. Hotels pay millions of dollars providing these products to guests and disposing of the waste products.
Miniaturized soap bars are another type of single use product. However, even the smallest bar of soap contains enough soap to be used for several days. These soaps must be wrapped to protect the soap from moisture. The wrapper is often inconvenient to remove, and can not be reused, such that there is no easy way to repackage a partially used bar of miniature soap for a travel kit. Thus, a partially used small soap bar is usually thrown away as soon as the guest leaves the hotel. Further, as the small soap bar shrinks with use, it becomes slippery and unmanageable, and is discarded in favor of a fresh bar. Thus, small soap bars are associated with inconvenience and waste. There is a need for improvement.
Single-dose dispensers are yet another way of providing small doses of product to a consumer. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,642,762 (laundry soap dispenser); U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,632,418, 5,598,952, 5,507,413, 5,439,144, 5,421,489 (liquid hand soap dispensers); and U.S. Pat. No. 5,427,284 (lotion dispenser). This type dispenser is frequently found in public restrooms. There are problems associated with these product dispensers. For example, when dispensing a dose of product, some product may drip to the surface below the dispenser. This creates a slippery mess which must be cleaned up. Furthermore, unit dose product dispensers easily become clogged as liquid solidifies, or run out of product since the supply reservoir is not easy to monitor. While acceptable in public restrooms, such liquid dispensers have not been adopted in hotels.
Consumers also become accustomed to certain personal care products, or for reasons of allergy, skin conditions, etc. require a certain brand or formulation of a personal care composition. The consumer would not expect to find the favorite composition in public bathrooms, in hotels, in restaurants, etc. Thus, there is a need for a product which can be easily carried about, and which contains the specific product formulation the consumer has come to know and trust.
The laundry industry has long been providing consumers with water-soluble, single-use products. However, these products include a large amount of active ingredient, containing enough soap or conditioner for an entire load of laundry, and are designed to dissolve in large amounts of water with the prolonged agitation associated with the use of a washing machine. See U.S. Pat. No. 2,635,400 (single use soap package, termed a "soaparette," which is shaped like a cigarette and comprises a rod shell of cigarette paper wrapper containing detergent within); U.S. Pat. No. 5,055,215 (non-water soluble unit-dose dry-cleaning product); U.S. Pat. No. 4,532,063 (dissolvable bleach sheet); U.S. Pat. No. 4,938,888 (detergent sheet with alkyl polyglycoside composition); and U.S. Pat. No. 5,030,375 (powder coated laundry detergent sheet). Compressed laundry detergent pellets are also well known in the laundry detergent art. See U.S. Pat. No. 3,081,267 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,231,505 (process for making compressed detergent tablets), U.S. Pat. No. 3,172,859 (detergent briquette), U.S. Pat. No. 3,231,505 (compressed detergent and bleach tablets), U.S. Pat. No. 4,715,979 (spray-dried detergent granules compacted to form detergent pellets); U.S. Pat. No. 5,658,874 (pellets of compacted detergent granules and specific surfactants); U.S. Pat. No. 4,973,416 (liquid laundry detergent in a water-soluble packaging); U.S. Pat. No. 5,382,377 (compacted tablets containing a plasticizer or lubricant); U.S. Pat. No. 5,658,874 (detergent tablet containing a polymer which acts both as a binder and as a disintegrant); U.S. Pat. No. 4,972,017 (single use wash additive wherein the additive is coated with a water-soluble polymeric film material). The pellet, tablet, and briquette products are comprised essentially of compressed detergent, with additives imparting the needed structural integrity and dissolvability properties. Thus, while the laundry industry has become highly evolved, it provides no suggestion as to how to make single use personal care products such as shampoo or hand soap products which contain only a small amount of active ingredient, yet must be structurally sufficiently large to be easily manipulated, and which must be completely consumed in a single use, leaving no residue.
There is thus a need for a personal care product which can supply the small quantity of active ingredient needed for a single use, yet is of a sufficiently large size to be easily handled. The product should not require expensive bottling or inconvenient wrapping, and should not be associated with litter or waste products. The product should be easy to handle, must be resistant to humidity yet readily dissolvable in water, must not crumble, crack, or disintegrate upon application of mechanical forces typically associated with product manufacture, shipping, storage, and product handling, and should not leave any undesirable residue on the skin.